


In Love and In Sin

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: Tiger, Tiger [16]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:26:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Am I so hard to love, my tiger?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Love and In Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Victor and Iris' relationship takes yet another turn. Set during episode 19.

Early retirement doesn’t seem to work for Iris, even when it was a voluntary—and long over-due—resignation. She still receives calls from the precinct, mostly Nygma checking in and making small talk—Is she doing well? Has she taken up any new hobbies?—and offering detailed accounts of the new medical examiner, of whom he seems quite fond. She also gets calls, too many and too often, from her jilted guardian. Gordon doesn’t implore her to return, but does seek her opinion on cases. All the damned time.

“It’s a change, and change takes time.” Don Falcone cheerfully says. “It will pass.”

Falcone regularly invites both of them over now, at least once a week. He and Iris have tea in the parlor, and they talk about many things, most reminiscing old memories; he is quite taken with little Shakta. Three days after their first introduction, he had a special little area prepared in the parlor for Shakta to nap, and assigned two of his men to keep a watch while she plays in the garden.

After tea, Falcone takes Victor aside for private talks and Iris tends to the cub. He’s keeping Victor busy these days, mostly with defiant and unruly folks on his payroll, but also a few of Maroni’s men who are getting too brazen and encroaching on the territory. With the latter, Victor has free reign; the former are to be given a warning. Whether or not they are still intact afterwards is left up to Victor’s discretion.

On a very chilly winter day, Victor gets a call about the commissioner getting antsy. Something about Gordon poking around again. He no sooner hangs up than Iris gets a call herself, from Gordon. _Again._

When she ends the call, the first words out of her mouth are the last ones he cares to hear: Gordon needs her. _Again._ He doesn’t get exact details, because she doesn’t know anything beyond meeting Jim at the precinct as soon as possible. The combination of who is calling, the place he wants to meet, and the complete lack of additional information is spiking his blood pressure in the realm of “dangerously high”. The way Iris looks—highly uncomfortable, like she really doesn’t want to go—is only making things worse.

“I just do not like the secrecy of it all.” She says, even while getting her coat and negotiating with a very needy Shakta. “He sounds agitated, and I question whether or not he is thinking clearly.”

“Do I need to point out which of those are reason enough to not go?” he says, very tightly. “Or do you already know, and you just don’t care?”

Iris stops and exhales slowly. “Do not do this, Victor. Not again. Not now.”

The tension between them is certainly not unnoticed; Shakta whimpers and tries to rub against Iris’ leg, but the gesture doesn’t work. “He needs my help.” She continues. “I owe him that much.”

“You owe him.” He can vaguely hear Shakta scurry away, very likely startled by his icy tone. “And just what do you owe him, pray tell? Did he choose to spare your life, defying orders at a great risk? Did he make the time to see you, even from afar, to keep watch over you? Did he teach you how to feel, how to express yourself? Did he treat you like a mature and capable and brilliant young woman while the rest of the city tried to coddle and degrade every last bit of your dignity? Did he stay by your side and in your life for _six years_ , seeing you through the good days and carrying you through the bad days? Did he destroy every shred of dignity and arrogance from the little worm who tried to rape you? Does he know you love music and art and poetry and language and literature, and to what lengths you went just so you could _learn_? Does he know the secrets you keep tucked away, deep inside, and how much you would love for people to feel half of the pain and humiliation you have endured? Would he make that wish, and every other wish and dream you could ever have, come true? Would he burn this city to the ground and run the streets red with blood, just for you? Would he kill for you? Would he _die_ for you? Does he have such absolute faith in you, is he so utterly and pathetically devoted to you, does he trust you so completely that he would let you do _**this**_?”

He rips a few threads in the process, violently yanking his shirt sleeve up to expose the scars, and among them _the scar_. It has, to any other eye, faded to one of many. But he remembers, and so does she. He can see it in glittering tears forming at the corners of her eyes, in the sharp gaze she holds with his scars, as though they are speaking to her with voices of their own. She doesn’t blink, but the tears finally fall down her cheeks in clear streams. She doesn’t sob aloud, doesn’t give hysterics, doesn’t do much in the way of what most would consider _crying_. The tears just fall, without dramatics, and after a point he can’t look at them anymore. It shouldn’t be a problem. He sees tears all the time and barely blinks. But seeing them on her face, falling from her eyes, knowing he’s the reason for the tears…he can’t look at them, and he can’t look at her. The sight makes something inside him tighten and coil, white-hot, violently. It makes him sick.

The silence only agitates him further. If he turns around, he can see whether or not she is still standing there, or if she’s walked away, or if she’s managed to slip out the door and he just didn’t hear her leave. This is a cold replication of six years prior, of the night that preceded a six month separation. And this time, it could very well be her that walks out the door. The thought makes his hands clench, again and again and again. If she walks away, how long will it be this time? Six more months? A year? _Six_ years?

What is _wrong_ with him? He is better than this. He is behaving like a little boy, like a juvenile. And this isn’t the first time. Over and over again, he finds himself in this place, in this sickening place of mental and emotional turmoil—emotions, when he doesn’t have any, when he’s heartless, when he’s a monster, when he’s a devil and an animal—and he’s getting tired of the cycle. It’s getting really old, really fast.

“Am I so hard to love?”

Her voice means she hasn’t walked away, that she hasn’t left him. But her question doesn’t help matters. It makes things worse.

“You want me to love you.” He slowly says, staring at the wall. If his gaze was fire, the house would be smoldering down to the ground. “You want me to love you. You think it will be a pretty little fairytale, Iris? That you’ve finally found your prince charming and now we’ll live happily ever after?”

He turns sharply, finally facing her. The tears are still fresh, more still coming, but she’s standing tall and holding his gaze. She hasn’t walked away. She hasn’t left him. But she’s asking for his love.

“And what if I can’t love you, Iris?” he says, taking three steps forward. “What if I _don’t_ love you?”

Iris barely blinks at the words thrown, doesn’t even flinch. The tears aren’t reappearing; if anything, her eyes are cold and resolved. “Your hypothetical scenarios are meaningless, Victor.” She says. “Because you already do.”

There is no waver or hesitation, just a blatant accusation. She doesn’t step back, doesn’t step forward, just stands in place and holds his eyes. “Your marks are not merely scars, Victor.” Iris says, after a short pause. “They are a part of you. Each and every one is a life, a person who once lived and breathed in this world. Each mark is a reminder of that life, of the first time you saw them, of the moment you took them away, somewhere private, somewhere where you could be alone with them. Every time you look at them, you remember. There are memories sewn in each and every one, and their lives are permanently bound into your skin.”

She swallows slowly, exhales, and continues. “You let me take part in that, Victor. You trusted me to give you exactly what you needed, to not ruin the sacred fragility of it all. When I pressed the knife into your skin and I gave you that mark, you looked at me as though you were finally seeing me. You looked at me as though I were a piece of you, missing for so long and suddenly found. You looked at me and I saw your heart. And in that moment, you became mine as much as I was already yours. In that moment, you fell as deeply in love with me as I am with you.”

Iris takes a very deliberate step forward, barely blinking as she does. “You cannot keep secrets from me, my tiger. You never have, you never could, and you never will.”

The silence doesn’t last much longer. She swallows back what he strongly suspects are more tears, even though no more appear, and then steps back. One, two, three, four steps, towards the door. No. No. “James is expecting me.” She says, though without any conviction in her voice. “I need to go.”

_No. Not again. Don’t walk away. Don’t leave me._

She gets to the door, fingers wrapped around the handle, and pulls it open. Nothing more than an inch, really, but it’s an inch too much and far too close to her walking out, walking away, leaving and never coming back. Logic, of course, calls him ridiculous and paranoid, absurdly so. She has a valid reason for leaving and she’s given no indication she won’t come back. But she’s leaving. She’s walking away, away from him, and logic has no place in this whatsoever.

His hand slams against the door, and it falls back in place with an unholy sound. Iris freezes in place; her gaze shifts from the door, to his hand, to his face. He doesn’t return her gaze, not for several long minutes. He can feel her gaze, the questions she won’t ask and he’s not ready to answer. A few times, he thinks she might, thinks the questions are coming, but when her lips open, they quickly close again.

He’s shaking. He’s lost his composure, not for a brief moment, but for a rapid succession of time, and not for the first time. He has lost control over his body, over his rational thought, over every little thread that keeps him and his perfectly-ordered image. He has, quite truly and completely, lost his mind.

After another heavy moment, he feels her fingertips curl around his hand. It’s not a tentative touch, or a fearful little gesture. It’s a firm, solid, commanding grip. He waits, two, three, five minutes. She doesn’t let go. She doesn’t pry him away from the door and walk away. She keeps a hold of him. An anchor. A grip on reality, or a draw into the sweet realm of insanity. The kind of bliss he feels when his knife slices into living flesh and he feels the warm rush of blood coursing over his hands and he listens to their last breath and sees the light fade from their eyes.

“Am I so hard to love?”

Her voice is much softer this time. She sounds tired—actually, she sounds exhausted—and he can hear the slightest catch of tears at the back of her throat. He can’t look at her, not yet, but he wouldn’t be surprised to see more tears, once again, leaking down her cheeks. It seems that’s about all he’s good at these days: making her cry. There was a time he was the only one who made her smile. Now, things have come full-circle, but in all the wrong ways.

“No.” he manages to say; his tone is empty and hollow, and there’s not much emphasis one way or the other, whether he’s telling the truth or just saying what she wants to hear. He’s not even sure himself.

She picks up on the complete lack of conviction with a quiet, heavily-resigned sigh. “James is waiting for me.” She says again. “Let me go.”

 _Let me go?_ Once more, his logical, well-reasoning mind—the one that says it’s just a simple request, asking to be let out of the house so she can meet Gordon and he can fill her in on whatever it is he needs from her—falls on deaf ears. “Let me go” no longer means, “Let me leave and come back later, when all is said and done”. It means _let me go_. It means to let her leave, to never seek her out again, to leave her alone. It means to walk away from and stay out of her life, forever. It means she doesn’t need him, or want him. It means she never wants to see him again or be near him again. It means she doesn’t love him.

His hand leaves the door and, in a violently fluid movement, joins the other in grabbing her shoulders and pinning her in place. Her eyes widen and her breath catches, and he can see the steady lull of her pulse falter, flicker, and begin to rush and race below her skin. He looks in her eyes, for a long and silent moment, and for the first time he sees fear. For the first time in this warped, exceptionally-dysfunctional, unorthodox mess they call a relationship, she is afraid of him.

“Victor,” Iris whispers, lips quivering around his name, “let me go.”

“Never.” He vaguely hears the word, feels it leave his lips, and then he has her crushed against the wall, hands tangled fiercely in her hair, lips bruising hers with a kiss that’s too much, too hard, too violent. He bites her lower lip to make them part, and to obtain the access he needs to relearn her taste, without permission and without gentleness and without breath. 

She would be within her right to push him away, strike him again and again, yell at him, curse him. He’s being too violent with her, he’s not giving her any say in the matter, and he’s taking more than giving. She really should push him away. She doesn’t.

Her hands fist tightly in his shirt front, nails scratching through the fabric, and suddenly her tongue meets his and she’s kissing him back with more teeth than lips, matching his ferocity. He groans quietly when she catches his lip in her teeth, grazing it sharply, and then tracing the marks with her tongue. He pulls back, catching his breath and trying to pull himself back together. It’s a lost cause, and he quickly stops trying.

“Iris…” he whispers, hands grabbing and pulling and yanking at her coat, without finesse, and finally getting it to the floor where it belongs. Why the woman insists on wearing a skirt in the middle of winter is beyond his comprehension, but at the moment he is quite pleased with her decision. Very, very pleased.

He lowers down to the floor, to his knees, with both hands gliding beneath her skirt, negotiating her underwear away and curling both hands around her thighs. She is so soft, and so warm, and so smooth. Perfect. She is so, _so_ perfect.

“Victor…?”

“Shhh,” he whispers, kissing a slow path up her thigh, fingers caressing the soft skin of her inner knee, paying homage to the delicate forms and elegant shapes. Her skin truly looks like porcelain, flawless and pristine, absent any freckles, marks, or other imperfections. He doesn’t know how, truly, it is possible for someone so thoroughly damaged on the inside to be so flawless on the outside.

He kisses her at the apex of her hip, where the skin is especially warm and tender. He can feel her heat, he can taste the salt of her sweat, he can smell her, and he wants to taste her. He wants to taste every last inch of her.

Iris’ cry is breathless, musical; a whimper mixed with a wordless declaration of something—shock, fear, uncertainty, all manner of things—accompanied by her hands suddenly slamming against the wall. She doesn’t know what to do; she wants to hold onto something but doesn’t know what; she’s not sure what she is feeling, or what he’s doing. This is the last bit of her virginity to be taken, and he is going to _enjoy_ this.

He keeps his hands on her, stroking the skin gently to soothe the trembling nerves, and takes it slow. He intends to take his time, savor this, teach her how it feels to be this vulnerable and know she is safe. To remind her of their first night, when she stripped him of control and left him vulnerable, exposed, essentially at her mercy, but it was safe. He was safe with her and she is safe with him. She will always be safe with him. He will always take care of her, and he will always protect her.

The tension slowly ebbs away; she relaxes against the wall, her breathing slows, and her hips arch in time with his motions, to and fro, to and fro. Confusion melts away and desire surfaces with a vengeance. Her breath catches, every so often, and he can hear his name escaping in a moan or whimper, mixed so beautifully with pleading whispers. He can hear the pitch rising, the frantic tone of her voice growing desperate, needy, urgent, and her body is speaking even without words. Her body wants more, faster, right now, _please, **please**_.

“Victor,” she gasps, whimpering, sounding halfway to tears, “Please. Please, do not stop. _Please_ …”

He wants to reassure her, to promise he’ll never stop, that he’ll take care of her, that he will make every nerve in her body sing with pleasure, with ecstasy. But words are meaningless right now; actions speak far louder. 

She nearly buckles when his efforts suddenly double, more deliberate and insistent, with one goal in mind. His hands on her hips are the only thing keeping her upright and keeping her in place; she is completely and wholly dependent upon him. And when he finally brings her fulfillment, when she finally falls head-first over the edge with a glorious cry, he is the only thing that keeps her from collapsing. She does wilt and tumble downward, but his arms catch her before she even grazes the floor, lift her into an embrace, and takes her back into the bedroom. He is far from done with her.

Iris is quivering in his arms, fingers curled in his shirt, trying to catch her breath. He sets her down to the mattress with care, then takes a step back to shed his jacket and shirt. When he starts to unbuckle his pants, she suddenly reaches out for him, fingers winding tight around his hands and holding them in place. Her eyes are dark, pupils wide, and she’s looking at him with absolute awe and wonder.

“What you did…” she whispers, voice trembling and each breath breaking on her tongue, “I…I never thought…I never knew…”

He catches her face in his hands, stepping closer, closer, settling at the mattress edge on his knees; her fingers ascend to his forearms, clasping and clutching like a lifeline. “Let me have you tonight, sweet girl.” He murmurs, brushing thumbs over her cheeks, sweeping away the lingering trails of dried tears. “Let me take you.”

She holds his gaze a moment longer in silence; then, her hands lower, fingers sliding along his stomach to waistband. “Be gentle.” She whispers, unclasping his pants and pushing them away. “Be gentle with me, my love.”

“Always.” He kisses her forehead, then her cheek, and finally her lips, this time with more finesse and less brutal urgency. He’s already bruised her once tonight; he doesn’t intend to leave more.

Her hands leave him to work on her own clothing, but she doesn’t get far before he stops her. “Let me.” He says, already fingering the hem of her sweater and guiding it upwards. He takes his time, eyes drinking in the inches of pale skin coming into view with each passing second, the smooth lines and soft curves, and the black lace garment that appears once he has it over her head and tossed aside. He exhales slowly, then leans forward and begins kissing a slow downward path, from the elegant lines of her throat to the sweet curves of her breasts.

“Victor…” she breathes, arching forward, against him, hands weaving across his head and neck, fingers running without pattern across the skin, caressing, stroking, while she quivers and begs without words. She is so beautiful. Too beautiful.

His hands blindly drop to her skirt, negotiating with the zipper for a moment before teasing it down her legs. He has to pull away, just to get it off her body and on the floor where it belongs, but she doesn’t let the distance last long before bringing his mouth back to hers. She takes control over the kiss, this time tasting him first, with unashamed eagerness and soft moans lost against his lips.

“Lay back.” he whispers, withdrawing from the kiss and smiling a bit when she whimpers and tries to chase him. “Lay back, my sweet one. Let me look at you.”

“I need you.” She protests, with such touching urgency in her voice. “Please.”

“You have me.” _All of me. More than you even know._ “Now, relax for me. You’re too tense.” To emphasize the point, he runs both hands along her limbs, massaging pointedly here and there. She’s trembling violently, the way she does when the fire in her veins is too much to bear and she’s half-mad with pure need.

She whimpers, clutching at him and pressing her forehead into his shoulder, “ _Victor…_ ” her skin is on fire; if he didn’t know better, he might think she was suffering from a raging fever. As it is, he supposes it could be called that, but this fever isn’t from illness.

“Lay back.” he repeats, again, one hand sliding between her quivering thighs and drinking in her breathless cry with another kiss. He loses a groan at the feel, liquid fire at his fingertips, and her body frantically rocking against each touch while her fingers claw at his shoulders. Beautiful. _My beautiful girl._

It takes a minute, but she finally lowers and rests flat to the mattress, and he takes in the vision with hungry eyes: pale skin slick with sweat, each breath tight and erratic, her pulse beating wildly beneath the skin, a lovely flush extending from her neck to cheeks, and her eyes begging even when her lips don’t make a sound. He can’t take it anymore.

She cries out when he finally joins their bodies, and there is a moment when he thinks he hurt her, maybe took her too roughly, but then her legs lock around his waist and she arches against him without pause. “Please.” Her voice is shaking; she sounds like she can barely breathe. “Victor, please. Take me. I need you, I want you, I love you. _Please._ ”

He doesn’t answer in words; his actions speak for him. His senses are devoted to memorizing her feel, her scent, the way she clutches at him with desperate hands and broken cries of need and delirious pleasure, the way their lips feel when hers meet his or his take hers, the perfect fit of her body against his, the way she feels against him and around him, the way she is so completely his. He doesn’t let her care, or remember, that she is supposed to be anywhere else but right here, in his bed and in his arms, his body inside hers, taking her fast, taking her slow, dragging out the end because he can think of few things more satisfying than staying like this, exactly like this, with her, forever. He can think of very little else, actually, other than surrendering to this raw, violent, overwhelming feeling spreading within him like fire, like ice, like ecstasy, reminding him with every touch and every unspoken whisper and every passing moment just how thoroughly he wants her, he needs her, and he loves her.


End file.
